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Gary Phebus wants to donate his heart, lungs, and liver. The problem is he wants to donate them before he dies. Gary was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, better known as Lou Gehrig's disease, in 2008. Phebus says he'd like to be able to donate his organs before they deteriorate, and doesn't consider his request suicide because he's "dead anyway."

While I don't really care to stop him in his request - let him do what he wants - I still consider the "dead anyway" argument flawed. ALL OF US are "dead anyway". Life is a condition with a 100% fatality rate. It's just a matter of when. Just because his when is likely sooner than most (not definitely though - I'm currently healthy but could easily be hit by a car this afternoon, and him still outlive me), doesn't make his death any less significant.

In short, it's still suicide. The only question is, whether suicide should be legal or not. Were I in his shoes it's not a choice I would make (might as well eek out as much time as I can), but I wouldn't deny him the right to make the choice.

Then I guess we are all slaves because someone tried to put some THC into his body the other day and got arrested for doing so......

This is not logical. For instance, perhaps no one can possibly "own" a living human being. If you don't own yourself because no one can, then you aren't a slave. You can also "own" your body but still be a slave. You can have your liberty compromised without your body being compromised, for instance if someone threatens to take away your only livelihood unless you comply with their demands. You can also effectively be a slave simply through a lack of understanding of your own freedom.

I only ever see this 'you own your own body' argument from libertarians, who use it to justify absolute property rights. But these absolute property rights lead directly to 'voluntary' slavery: do what I say or starve to death because we own all the property and you do not. The entire premise is a simplistic piece of philosophical masturbation. I say, just as no one can (or should) own the air we breath, no one can (or should) own a human, including themselves. Libertarians want to make everything about ownership, but ownership is a simplistic and selfish concept. I would rather have society based on mutual agreement (which is the only thing society can be based on, really, I just want that explicitly acknowledged.)

Libertarians say, "You own your body, therefore you own the rewards of your work, therefore no one can tell you what to do with your property because that amounts to slavery." I like that conclusion, but why go to such convoluted lengths to reach it? It's much simpler like this: "You control the rewards of your work because everyone agrees that they would like to control the rewards of theirs." That's it. No need to invoke ownership or slavery at all, just agreement. And it leaves open the idea that we can and should limit property rights when they interfere with society. Sometimes, there are things that are more important than having total control over your own stored labor. For instance, pollution is an externality. That means that you should not be allowed to pollute your own property, because it imposes a cost on others. You should also not be allowed to buy up all the property and make everyone work for you or starve to death.

In short, "I own my own body and therefore should have absolute property rights" leads, inevitably, to slavery. "We agree to these sets of rights and obligations" does not necessarily lead to slavery.

So the argument is simple, does society have the same kind of vested interest in ending the gestation of a fetus that we accept as valid reasons for killing in other circumstances? The evidence says yes, it does. Look at crime rates, since abortion was legalized they have gone down. Unwanted children often turn into criminals. They ruin the lives of their parents and communities and create costs that all of us have to bear.

I find this proposal of "valid reasons for killing" to be quite modest. I believe that a rational expansion of this policy would be to euthanize all first-time criminal offenders, as it is known there is a high recidivism rate, and that these criminals often turn into worse criminals and ruin the lives of their families and communities and create costs that all of us have to bear. Additionally, the handicapped or the otherwise disabled (by birth or by accident) are also known to ruin the (planned) lives of

Why do people think motorcycles are dangerous? Hell I've raced go-karts at 80mph (fuck yes, 15hp 6 speed shifter cart!) with full motorcycle gear including a helmet, neck brace, and mesh suit. You know what happens when you take a hairpin too hard on a kart at 80mph?... you slide sideways for a while, say "fuck" a couple of times, right the kart, and get back on. Oh, and you lose, since that 8 seconds is enough for you to fall squarely into last place.

1) MOTORCYCLISTS Selection bias favours thrill seekers & risk takers. 45% of all fatal bike accidents are single-vehicle accidents - they just fall off.
2) CARS. Even assuming other road users are paying attention (you should never assume this - ever) a car is made of metal and weighs 20 times what you do. Altercations between cars and squishy people do not end well, no matter how much leather said squishy person is wearing.
3) STATISTICS Motorcyclists are 16 times more likely to die in a crash. Total miles traveled by MC's makes up less then 1% of the national fleet, but bike riders make up 12% of the annual road toll.

not really.That would be the case if *someone else* like the government owned them(howerver they do after you're dead in many countries for various reasons).

it could be considered similar to being a trustee or guardian of your own body which would neatly cover people being commited to mental hospitals when people are a danger to themselves.You can still have rights under such a system.

You raise an interesting point. If I own my body I can surely mutilate it.I can get a tattooI can pierce my earI can cut off a fingerI can cut off an armI can cut off a legOr can I?But what if I get one of the attempts wrong and bleed to death? When does it stop being artistic and become attempted suicide?

But what if I get one of the attempts wrong and bleed to death? When does it stop being artistic and become attempted suicide?

It becomes attempted suicide when your -goal- was your death.

If you chop off your leg because you think you'd be happier with that leg gone.. go for it. If you then can't stop the arterial bleeding and bleed to death.. well, whoops. But your goal was only to remove your leg, not to kill yourself. Therefore, not suicide.

His death isn't even that imminent, consider that Stephen Hawking was diagnosed with ALS 47 years ago. An extreme case certainly (the longest survivor of any ALS patient), and I doubt that many people would have adapted to and overcome the psychological problems of the disease as well as Hawking has. But to say that ALS is 100% death sentence is obviously wrong.

We don't know the specifics of his case -- in his case, it could be an imminent death sentence. Just like some people survive cancer and some people die of it in short order. Usually an appropriate doctor can take a pretty good guess on these things even if it's not flawless.

Perhaps it is not legal to assist suicide, but it is legal to buy a one-way ticket to a country where assisted suicide is legal. (Or put it on your credit card:) There was a frontline [pbs.org] on this. As it so happens the person in question also had ALS.

While I don't really care to stop him in his request - let him do what he wants - I still consider the "dead anyway" argument flawed. ALL OF US are "dead anyway". Life is a condition with a 100% fatality rate. It's just a matter of when. Just because his when is likely sooner than most (not definitely though - I'm currently healthy but could easily be hit by a car this afternoon, and him still outlive me), doesn't make his death any less significant.

Accepting the inevitability of death isn't exactly the same as being suicidal. We all know we're going to die, most of us just ignore that fact in our daily lives. But when someone is directly facing that reality they may choose to want to make it "mean something" as in this guy's case.

"Suicidal" means wanting to die. I doubt this guy wants to die, but he does want his inevitable death to mean something to someone.

If you are in incredible agony with no hope for survival, you may wish to die because death would be better than the agony.( up for discussion, usually from religious views, but let's say that the person in question believes so )That wouldn't qualify as being suicidal on its own. You may not want to kill yourself.

There's a difference between "wanting" and "not caring". My wife died several years ago from a brain tumor. Now I don't really care how long I live... Even have my Will, Living Will, DNR and body donation (to science, like she did) forms filed - and I'm only 47.
Not only that, I'm not afraid because she's there - wherever that may be - even if only in the abstract.

Well, inviting death is somewhat different than guaranteeing it. I don't disagree with your unstated conclusion, but the rationale is somewhat different. My opinion is that if someone's experience of life is already painful, and guaranteed to get worse with no hope of recovery, they should be allowed to end it. And if they want to help others in the process, that's gravy.

My opinion is that if someone's experience of life is already painful, and guaranteed to get worse with no hope of recovery, they should be allowed to end it. And if they want to help others in the process, that's gravy.

There's a possibility that the doctor says to a patient "your life is over in 3 years, but if you kill yourself, you'd save another", but 2 years later after the patient killed herself, a cure for the disease is discovered.

I wouldn't say "willingly inviting death" but I see the point you're making.

I'm reminded of an episode of M*A*S*H where a soldier was brain-dead due to too much shrapnel turning his head to swiss cheese. The doctors were waiting for his body to fully die (all other functions were still going, but slowly fading) because they needed to harvest some tissue to save someone else. The soldier's friend, recovering from his own injuries, was upset that they were just waiting like vultures to butcher his friend.

The priest asked him if his friend was the kind of guy who would jump on a grenade to save his buddies. The soldier responded that, yes, his dying friend would have done that without a second thought. "Well," the priest said, "that's what he's doing right now." He died back on the battlefield, the rest of his body just hasn't figured it out yet.

This guy is facing a similar decision, he just wants to make it himself while he can before someone else has to make it for him.

I'm not saying his heart isn't in the right place (no pun intended), but if he considers himself a dead man anyway, is it really altruistic? It's kind of like the old millionaire who leaves his estate to a charity. Was it really charitable of him if he didn't give it away while he was still living?

I'm not saying his heart isn't in the right place (no pun intended), but if he considers himself a dead man anyway, is it really altruistic? It's kind of like the old millionaire who leaves his estate to a charity. Was it really charitable of him if he didn't give it away while he was still living?

I'd say, by definition, this guy is offering to give away his heart and lungs while he's still living. That's the whole point of the story!
If we was just saying "Hey, you know, when I die and shit, why not harvest my organs and stuff, and, you know, like give it to other people" then it wouldn't really be much of a story!

Unless he's actually just suicidal and is looking for a way to do it that his family and friends will be able to accept. Not saying this is the case, just saying that he needs to be thoroughly evaluated before you can even say if he's the ultimate altruist or just wants off the ride.

This one has a much better chance of succeeding though. Social conservatives who want to run other people's lives and Pharmaceutical Corporations interested in making a buck are the only ones who are against physician-assisted suicide, and now that they have the opportunity to profit from organ harvesting instead of profiting from end-of-life care, at least the Pharmaceutical Corporations may change their minds.

I cant remember where I read it, but I remember reading that "Live Donor" transplants have a higher success rate than "dead donor" harvested organs. If he planned it out ahead of time, for the highest chance of a successful transplant, he would have to notify the physicians performing the transplant operation of his suicide plans so that they would be ready to quickly perform the procedure, which I believe would cause those physicians legal trouble aw well as potentially cost them their medical licenses f

Yeah, but it's still going to be hours or days before the physicians can match him with a recipient, call in the right surgeons, prep for the procedure, etc. etc. and during that time his organs will be slowly dieing, even in the care of transplant professionals. Plus it's kind of fucked up to the hospital staff and patients to put them through the experience of watching some random guy blow his brains out on in the waiting room.
I agree with you that he still has control over his own body, but there's r

If you want the organs to be viable, the EMTs need to show up fast. Those guys don't have advanced life support gear(more advanced than the panicked bystanders, sure, less advanced than the hospital) so your organs will be deteriorating the whole time from gunshot to OR. They'll probably be deteriorating extra quickly because a decent gunshot wound(ie. the one you want in a suicide attempt), will cause massive blood loss, really fast. This is good for

RTFA, the organs he wants to donate are not affected by ALS. Do you really think it would have gone this far without first determining that? And if you don't want them, feel free not to take them, but I think you might feel different if your heart was ready to give out any day now.

ALS is a genetic disease that affects the nerve cells involved in voluntary muscle movements only. It's not transmissible, and it doesn't affect internal organs that aren't under voluntary control (and for the record, your lungs aren't under voluntary control, they expand and contract based on the movement of your diaphragm). A heart, lung or liver from an ALS patient would be no worse for you than any other organ transplant (and heck, it might be better since most other organ donations come from accident v

ALS is a brain disease, the neurons that control muscle movement degrade over time, causing paralysis and eventually death by respiratory failure. The organs are unaffected because even the heart is not controlled by motor neurons in the brain. After he passed he'd be the perfect donor, one with too much brain damage to live but otherwise healthy organs. The stated concern is the year or more spent lying in bed after the paralysis hits could damage or degrade the organs (I suspect the real concern is tha

Were it legal to sell one's own organs (which it should be), he would likely have already sold them, and given the profits to his loved ones - a win-win situation for all involved. Instead, we are stuck with waiting lists and high prices (due to lack of supply, due to ban on selling for profit).

He may not want to accept being wheelchair bound but he could have a fulfilling life with ALS, even though the chances are relatively slim. He should take up physics, after all Stephen Hawkig isn't going to live *forever*. If he really wants to be an organ donor, he should do what every one else does: file the appropriate paperwork at the DMV and buy a motorcycle*.

How long until the Anti-Kevorkians [wikipedia.org] create a media 'outrage'? You should be allowed to do what you want, when you want with your own manifestation and its components. If they allow people to have 'DNR' clauses attached to them in case of traumatic circumstances, or allow people to preemptively opt out of life support (having the plug pulled before they are 'dead'), then this mans behavior should be allowed.

If you havn't seen 7 Pounds [imdb.com], it is a good watch and hits this issue in a different but powerful ligh

I have specifically requested that there is nothing left of me to bury or burn. Once I'm dead I will have no further use of this meatbag and anyone who wants a piece of it can have it. Hang my skeleton in a medical school and show future generations of doctors what bones look like. Let my heart pump blood in a teenager's body and let someone break it. Open my eyes to see another sunrise. Have my skin feel a gentle touch again after someone's had a bad burn. My kidneys and liver would love to have another drink -- and this one's on me. I'm not sure what my spleen does, but I'm pretty sure there's someone lying in a hospital bed who does. Likewise, there's a kid with lukemia who's dying for a little bit of bone marrow.

When there's nothing else left that someone wants, burn it and use it to fertilize an apple tree. Bake me a pie and serve it with ice cream.

It's the same as claiming your child is of a specific religious belief, agnostic, atheist, liberal, democrat, or whatnot. As much as you seem extremely honourable about your after-death actions, I have a hard time accepting people will time and time again press their own ideas onto their children.

Educate them, give them the ability to make their own decision. I doubt that at age 4 and 6, either of them have that ability.

Well, they play with LEGO all the time. (There's an xkcd reference here, but I can't check it at work to get the URL.)

But yes, you are technically correct that my kids are not making the decision. I would hope that they get the chance to observe my actions over the course of their childhood and learn to act with decency towards their fellow human beings, rather than being pedantic about how you can never really make decisions.;)

Educate them, give them the ability to make their own decision. I doubt that at age 4 and 6, either of them have that ability.

As a parent, you have a responsibility to impress upon your children at least some form of morality. That means imparting to them a set of beliefs and values that you have that may not be shared by other people.

I'm disturbed by this new trend that seems to promote the idea that it's not my right to raise my children in any way I see fit.

If they don't have the ability to decide then why not pick organ donor over not an organ donor? When they are old enough to make the choice, they can. Personally I think 6 is more than old enough, but I suppose it depends on the kid. My point is that signing them up as "not donors" is a decision as well.

Well, if you wait until they're old enough, then there will never be any child-sized organs to donate. Right now, when a child dies, the parents may be asked about organ donation (a very sensitive topic, obviously, but many parents chose to help another child survive, despite being unable to save their own). Beardo has merely made that decision ahead of time, hopefully for a situation that will never come.

Not true. In NY for example it is illegal to remove a patient's organs before he has been pronounced dead by a physician using certain clinical criteria. Depending on the organs in question the pathologist has window of one to 24 hours for the tissue to be viable. A special case is when a patient is on a ventilator. He can be declared "brain dead" which is legally irreversible, clinical death, but all his organs can be kept 'alive' and healthy for days.

NY is considering making organ donation the default status in the state unless you opt out of it. I actually think that's a bridge too far -- the state ought not to assume that I want to give away my body parts without confirmation of this wish.

Most people don't put any thought into whether they want to be a donor or not, and whatever religious or superstitial concerns may arise, because the question of being a donor or not never affects them in an opt-in scenario.After all, if you're not a donor, you don't have to think about parts of your body being used to help others. It's easy and lazy.

If you make it opt-out, people will be forced to think about this and make a decision to either remain a donor, or opt out of it.

If it weren't likely to elicit "ZOMG Teh Constutition!" responses, I'd say this should actually really be handled in high school or college. Have people decide actively to either be a donor, or -not- be a donor; no 'default' status being presumed (with younger children falling under the wisdom (with any luck) of their parents/guardians).

If opt-in is the norm.. very well. But I do think that those who choose not to be a donor should in fact be treated differently when it comes to receiving a donor. I wouldn't go as far as saying that they shouldn't get the donor organ (or skin graft or whatever).. but perhaps a donor recipient should automatically be made a donor themselves. After all, it's not 100% their own body they'd be deciding about anymore, and at least somebody whose organ(s) you received -did- choose to be a donor.

And if you make it opt-in and someone gets into an accident and can't be identified for whatever reason [...] his wishes aren't going to be respected.

True - and that is a risk that you take yourself when you don't carry any form of identification. This is no different from a DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) card. If you forget to bring that, get in an accident, and you get resuscitated anyway.. well, tough.

(do you always carry your ID when you leave the house?)

Yes - my ID, my credit card, my debit card, my drivers' license, my (medical) insurance card, my unlimited-movies-at-the-theater card and, of course, my donor registration card I -always- carry with me when I leave the house same as I do my keys (can't get back in without them).

In the absence of proof that a person consented to organ donation it's absurd to slice up his body and take his organs.

For a moment I was wondering if you meant to argue that case in your first sentence - but I guess you're going for that approach here; If the system is opt-out and somebody can't be identified, that their organs would be taken under a presumption that they are a donor. Just in case: heck no. Of course the person should be identified first to get a conclusive donor vs non-donor either way; otherwise: presume non-donor.

The ownership of my body does not transfer to the state when I die.

That remains to be seen under many, many jurisdictions, especially as time passes from the time of death. In fact, if you are the victim of a homocide, ownership of your body -is- temporarily transferred to the state for purposes of conducting their investigation. Your body would only later be released to your family / loved ones / etc.But trying to muddy the waters by appealing to people's emotions that "opt-out" = "The Man is gonna harvest your organs!"? really?

Since a majority of Americans self-identify as Christian, but not as belonging to a particular sect which disbelieves in organ donation, I think including religion in the mix argues in favor of opt-out organ donation.

No it doesn't. You can't determine someone's moral/religious beliefs regarding the disposition of their remains based on what the "majority" believes.

I don't suppose any of these decisions are easy, but how many people die every year due to a lack of an available organ? How many people do we keep alive for a few days, or a few hours just for the benefit of their families emotional state (which is a product of a culture we created), and in the process wreck their organs?

Having grown up in a rich country (canada), and spent a lot of time in poor ones, we in the rich world do a catastrophically bad job of making hard choices, myself included. We keep people alive, when they aren't able to live, and we treat the absolute maximum survivability of one individual as paramount over the reasonable survivability of many. It's an emotional allocation of resources, not an efficient one. Whether it's healthcare dollars or peoples organs, they are in truth, resources which can be, and are managed. The goal is to manage them efficiently. That needs to combine the people, and actual experts, who are removed from the emotional realities of the situation.

When a soldier sees a grenade land in the middle of his unit, and, in 3 seconds or less decides his life is worse less than his comrades jumps on the grenade and kills himself, whether he (and the rest his unit) could have all managed to get out of the way or not, we give them a posthumous medal, a flag, usually a promotion in rank so his family gets a better pension. But when a person spends years carefully assessing their role in the world, and the quality of life they have, vs what they can do we get all offended.

I think it's encouraging that we would start looking to preserve lives, rather than a life. When you stop throwing silly amounts of money at a problem you start thinking responsibly about what is important, and what can, and should be done. If you build a system that lets people be (emotionally) greedy, and stupid, they will be, because people are. If you build a system centred around helping not just your mental state, but the physical and mental state of people who you don't even know you're more likely to get a more efficient use of the resources available. This requires first and foremost that doctors be honest with patients, and each other, about what a prognosis is. Secondly it require a society that lets people be honest with themselves about what their prognosis is. As the original article states, this guy has had 2 years to come to grips with this, when the life expectancy for someone with ALS is about 4 years (20k people with ALS, 5k/year diagnosis). For every stephen hawking there are probably 4999 people who don't even make the 4 year mark, the quicker you can come to grips with the time you have, the more you can do with it, and the more you can value the time someone else might have too.